What to know about the $30 million cash heist in Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES — A brazen cash heist in Los Angeles over Easter weekend, in which thieves broke into a safe and made off with as much as $30 million, is believed to be one of the largest such robberies in American history.
The heist has sparked rampant speculation among a public long enamored with daring burglaries and hefty criminal payouts.
Here are some things you need to know about the recent theft in Los Angeles and the history of such crimes.
The LA Police Department and the FBI remained tight-lipped Friday about new developments in their joint investigation, but Police Chief. Elaine Morales told the Los Angeles Times, which broke news of the crime, that thieves were able to break into the cash warehouse in the suburb of Sylmar and then enter the safe containing the money.
Media reports identified the facility as a location of GardaWorld, a global cash management and security company. The Canada-based company, which also operates a fleet of armored personnel carriers, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press on Friday.
Police said officers received a call for service at the facility at 4:30 a.m. on Easter Sunday, and aerial footage from KABC-TV showed a large hole in the side of the building that appeared to have been boarded up with plywood.
Jim McGuffey, an expert on armored cars and physical security, called the theft “a shock.” Such a facility would have to have two alarm systems and a seismic motion detector directly on the vault, he said, as well as additional motion sensors throughout the building.
“For that kind of money you can’t just walk in and out with it,” he told AP. “A facility must be protected from top to bottom and from the sides.”
Randy Sutton, a former police detective in New Jersey and Las Vegas who investigated major crimes and luxury burglaries, said a crime of this magnitude was likely planned for months or more and involved numerous people.
“This required a tremendous amount of research and a tremendous amount of technical knowledge regarding circumventing security systems and surveillance,” he said.
He said much of the money in a facility like GardaWorld’s is already in circulation, so unless it comes directly from the US Treasury Department, most of it may not be traceable.
He added that law enforcement has almost certainly begun interviewing anyone who worked at GardaWorld or knew anything about its security protocols.
“You can rest assured that not only will the current employees of that organization be scrutinized, but former employees will be scrutinized as well,” he said.
Law enforcement officials have not discussed the details of the stolen money, but regardless of the value of the bills, such a huge amount of cash would be difficult to move and transport.
The weight of $1 million in $100 bills alone is about 22 pounds (10 kilograms), according to testimony before Congress by a U.S. Treasury official. If the cash were in different denominations, such as $5, $10 and $20, the weight of $1 million in cash could be closer to 250 pounds (115 kilograms), which is the total weight of last year’s loot weekend could bring it to as many as 7,500. pounds (3,400 kilograms), or about 3 1/2 tons (3.18 tons).
Sutton said it’s likely the criminals who tackled the attack already had a plan to launder that much money.
“It’s an interesting question: how do you get rid of that amount?” he said. “I know it’s a dilemma that we would all like to have, but the reality is that these criminals probably had that in their repertoire.”
Although the world’s largest cash heist is believed to be the looting of the Central Bank of Iraq during the 2003 US invasion, and other major cash heists have been committed in Europe and South America, the Los Angeles heist is believed to be among the largest . largest ever in the US
According to the Los Angeles Times, the 1997 armed robbery of nearly $19 million was at the Dunbar Armored Co. depot. the largest cash heist in US history at the time in Los Angeles. That affair, which saw five armed robbers in black clothing and masks tie up a handful of workers in the depot, was planned with the help of a former employee of the facility. It took years to solve the case, and although all five perpetrators were caught, most of the money was never recovered.
Although not a cash heist, as much as $100 million worth of jewelry and other valuables was stolen from a Brink’s big rig at a Southern California truck stop nearly two years ago. The thieves were not caught.
People have long been obsessed with heists involving big money, as evidenced by the key role these criminal jobs play in movies, movies and television. A central theme of the 1990 gangster classic “Goodfellas” is the true story of the 1978 Lufthansa heist, when gangsters made off with just under $6 million in cash and jewelry in what was the largest American heist at the time.
The 2001 blockbuster heist film “Ocean’s 11,” a remake of a 1960 film of the same name, also featured a cast determined to steal $160 million from a Las Vegas casino. That film spawned several sequels that focused on elaborate heists.
A popular heist film set in Los Angeles, 1995’s “Heat” features a group of elite professional thieves who target armored cars and bank vaults. The film stars Robert DeNiro as an LA thief and his team who plan to pull off a final $12 million bank heist while being pursued by an LA detective played by Al Pacino.
___ Associated Press reporters Stefanie Dazio and Eugene Garcia in California contributed to this report.